SUCCESS STORY | AWL-TECHNIEK

Image courtesy of AWL-Techniek

AWL-TECHNIEK EXPANDS DESKTOP VIRTUALIZATION GLOBALLY USING NVIDIA QUADRO vDWS

AWL LEVERAGES NVIDIA QUADRO vDWS FOR GRAPHICS-ACCELERATED COLLABORATION AROUND THE WORLD.

INTRODUCTION:

AWL-Techniek is a world leader in the development and

manufacturing of high-tech welding machines. The company’s

engineers specialize in designing innovative concepts for

high-end machine automation, robotization, and joining

technologies for the unique requirements of international

automotive suppliers. Thanks to AWL’s stellar reputation,

customer orders have skyrocketed in recent years as the

automotive industry’s global demand has increased.

CHALLENGE STATEMENT:

In response to growing sales, five years ago, AWL began

expanding from a regional player into a global partner

for its automotive customers by increasing its production

capacity around the world. In 2013 the company had two

facilities in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

As it planned for new locations in China, the United

States, and Mexico, AWL’s leaders needed to find ways of

maximizing efficiency and improving global collaboration

across all business sectors. Overcoming several big IT

hurdles was a key strategy for achieving these goals.

Image courtesy of AWL-Techniek

SUCCESS STORY | AWL-TECHNIEK

CUSTOMER PROFILE

Organization AWL-Techniek

Industry Manufacturing

Location Harderwijk, Netherlands

Employees 700+ employees

Website www.awl.nl

SUMMARY

> AWL-Techniek is a world leader in the development and manufacturing of high-tech welding machines for the automotive and machine industries.

> To improve productivity, AWL needed a high-performance virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment that enabled engineers to collaborate on 3D graphics files.

> Global expansion also meant AWL needed to control IT costs as staff numbers grew rapidly.

> The company deployed NVIDIA® Quadro® Virtual Data Center Workstation (Quadro vDWS) software to deliver 3D graphics applications to engineers and improve productivity applications for office staff.

SUCCESS STORY | AWL-TECHNIEK

PRODUCTS

Hypervisor: Citrix XenDesktop, XenApp, and XenServer

Graphics Acceleration: NVIDIA Quadro vDWS

Server: Dell PowerEdge R720, R730, and R740

GPU: NVIDIA GRID® K2, NVIDIA Tesla® M60, and NVIDIA Tesla P40

At the time, one of AWL’s biggest IT challenges was a lack of data

synchronization. The company’s mechanical design engineers

faced daily productivity setbacks when working on shared 3D files

in applications like Siemens PLM NX, Siemens Process Simulate,

Dassault Systèmes CATIA, and SOLIDWORKS. To update files,

engineers downloaded them from the server and uploaded them

on completion. This process meant that engineers were never

sure whether they were working on the latest revision of files.

When a project was ready for production, engineers exported the 3D

files and transferred them to mechanics for viewing in eDrawings. This

process introduced challenges with large data transfers and errors.

It was common for engineers to update files and then forget to export

a new viewable version or inform colleagues about changes. Lacking

a single source of truth, engineers and mechanics spent valuable

time checking and rechecking plans before project completion.

Another challenge was finding an effective strategy for rapidly

rolling out and managing IT for users around the world. Running

a global business, a big part of AWL’s success would hinge on

employees’ ability to share large files, collaborate in real time,

and communicate via video conferencing. AWL’s IT team needed

to stay lean and cost-effective even as it kept up with the rapid

growth of users’ IT maintenance and software requirements.

Image courtesy of AWL-Techniek

RESULTS WITH NVIDIA QUADRO vDWS

> Expanded global locations with 700+ staff with an IT team of 10 in the Netherlands and no local IT

> Increased server density by 300 percent with users experiencing the same, or better, performance

> Improved user experience with reduced end-to-end latency when leveraging NVENC

> Decreased CPU usage by 28 percent with NVENC

SUCCESS STORY | AWL-TECHNIEK

SOLUTION STATEMENT:

A solution came when AWL merged with the IT of MechDes in 2014,

effectively inheriting the company’s IT expertise. As a firm that

specialized in 3D SOLIDWORKS design, MechDes had already solved

the problem of file sharing and high-performance graphics with Citrix

and NVIDIA. Rody Kossen, who started at MechDes as a mechanical

engineer, described the selection process, “When we looked toward

virtualization in 2013, we discovered that Citrix was the only solution

that delivered NVIDIA virtual GPUs. No one else provided that kind

of high-level 3D graphics performance. Because NVIDIA was so

advanced and provided so much flexibility, we had to go with Citrix.”

After the merge, Kossen transitioned to the role of senior systems

engineer at AWL. As the company set out to create a roadmap for a global

IT strategy, it leveraged Kossen’s extensive virtualization experience.

During the next year, AWL built a global virtualized environment that

would deliver high-performance graphics applications, purchasing Dell

servers and installing NVIDIA GRID K2 and NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPU cards.

First, the team deployed a production environment on 12 servers

with 150 concurrent NVIDIA virtual GPU (vGPU) users. When testing

was complete, the IT team decided to allocate resources according to

three profiles: engineer, viewer/mechanic, and office worker. To meet

the resource requirements of engineers and mechanics, the IT team

compared the performance of the NVIDIA GRID K2 and Tesla M60

cards. They discovered that they could get faster results and double the

density per server by using the M60 GPUs (eight engineers on GRID K2

versus 16 on Tesla M60 and 16 mechanics on K2 versus 32 on M60).

AWL also discovered the value of the NVENC encoder built into

NVIDIA GPUs in terms of delivering better user performance and data

transfer. “We leveraged NVENC to reduce CPU usage on our server

farm. We found that by using NVENC we could significantly reduce

the performance impact on a host machine’s GPU and CPU. We

could use one core less per user because the workload is offloaded

to the GPU. This also lowers the latency for the user because the

NVENC could encode much faster than the CPU,” said Kossen.

“Without NVIDIA virtual GPU technology, we would need to double in size and have local IT people on every site. We now support 700+ people with an IT team of 10 in the Netherlands and no local IT.”

Rody Kossen Senior Systems EngineerAWL-Techniek

SUCCESS STORY | AWL-TECHNIEK

RESULT STATEMENT:

As AWL rapidly expands around the world, VDI powered by NVIDIA

Quadro vDWS ensures the IT team can provide new virtual desktops

to locations almost instantly. “Setting up a new location only takes a

few hours. When we opened our U.S. location, we had staff working

inside the office before the building was even ready. It was easy for

our IT team to get everyone up and running remotely,” said Kossen.

As a result of deploying NVIDIA Quadro vDWS, the company has

managed to almost double its engineering and mechanics staff

without the need for additional IT support. “We have almost no IT

equipment at our locations, so there’s almost no maintenance.

Without NVIDIA virtual GPU technology, we would need to double

in size and have local IT people on every site. We now support 700+

people with an IT team of 10 in the Netherlands and no local IT.”

NVIDIA Quadro vDWS enables engineers to work with more efficiency

by providing unmatched 3D rendering speed and capacity. Moreover,

engineers can work collaboratively on 3D graphics files in ANSYS,

Siemens PLM NX, Dassault Systèmes CATIA, SOLIDWORKS, and Siemens

Process Simulate. Mechanics can view updated files in eDrawings at

any of AWL’s facilities without data synchronization issues. And user

experience significantly improved—rotating models in SOLIDWORKS and

opening the PLM Viewer and browsing projects became much faster.

With CPU offloading, engineers have a high-quality, fluid experience

when video conferencing. This was particularly important as it’s not

uncommon for engineers in the Netherlands to use Skype for Business

and do screen sharing with engineers in China. “People are very happy

with the solution because they can work in a fast and stable environment

and are always working on the latest revision of files,” said Kossen.

Image courtesy of AWL-Techniek

SUCCESS STORY | AWL-TECHNIEK

High-performance virtualization also dramatically speeds up the

production process. “Today our shop floor is 90 percent digital. You won’t

see any paper plans or manuals. Mechanics use 3D viewers to view

engineering plans and then build equipment directly from them,”

said Kossen.

This improvement in productivity also extends to office staff using

Microsoft Office as well as Skype for Business VoIP calls, video

conferencing, and instant messaging. “Users can now work anyplace,

anytime, with consistent performance. They work faster because

they can use any device that they like and yet still enjoy great

performance. That’s because of NVIDIA virtual GPU technology.”

Other benefits AWL has realized due to NVIDIA Quadro vDWS have been

improvements in user density on servers, as well as decreased latency.

“We saw user density increase 300 percent as we were evaluating the

latest NVIDIA Pascal™ architecture-based GPUs (eight engineers with

[NVIDIA] Kepler™ to 24 with Pascal), with at least the same performance

per user. The total end-to-end latency dropped by 20 milliseconds when

leveraging NVENC because the encoder is much faster. This resulted in a

10 percent decrease of the total end-to-end latency. On our Dell servers

with NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs, we can host 16 people; with NVENC, we

saw a total of 28 percent decrease of CPU usage (one core per user).”

Now with the Dell R740 with NVIDIA Tesla P40 GPUs, they can even

achieve 24 engineers or 48 mechanics on one server. Thus, by upgrading

from K2 they can triple their capacity in the same physical space.

As AWL continues to expand, innovations from each iteration of NVIDIA

vGPU software—like support for live migration—become invaluable. In

the past, IT needed to log off all users from their Citrix environment when

they wanted to perform maintenance on the hosts. In the beginning,

when they had just a few users, this wasn’t a big issue. But as the

company began to grow, it became a challenge. “Citrix XenMotion

support on NVIDIA vGPU is very critical, as we are a global company

running almost 24 hours a day with a really short service window. Now

I have the flexibility to take a host out of production without any issue.

With today’s security issues—like Meltdown and Spectre—this is a

‘must have’ to keep our environment patched and safe!” said Kossen.

“Citrix XenMotion support on NVIDIA vGPU is very critical, as we are a global company running almost 24 hours a day with a really short service window. Now I have the flexibility to take a host out of production without any issue. With today’s security issues—like Meltdown and Spectre—this is a

‘must-have’ to keep our environment patched and safe!”

Rody KossenSenior Systems Engineer, AWL-Techniek

Upcoming projects for AWL’s IT team include opening a new

headquarters in the Netherlands and migrating all users to Windows

10. Said Kossen, “We’re creatively exploring new ways to make it

easier for users to collaborate in our virtualized environment. Part

of that is getting everyone on Windows 10, and another part is giving

them the option of working side-by-side at floating workstations. We

envision an office where engineers and mechanics can meet, log in to

their profiles, and share ideas freely. NVIDIA virtual GPU technology

ensures that, no matter what application they’re working on or

where they’re located, staff can experience great performance.”

Going forward, as AWL expands and acquires more companies,

they’ll continue to leverage NVIDIA virtual GPU technology on

Pascal architecture-based cards to provide their employees with

the best performance and IT with simplified management and

cost-effective scalability.

www.nvidia.com/virtualgpu

To learn more about NVIDIA Quadro vDWS, visit: www.nvidia.com/quadro-vdws

© 2018 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, NVIDIA GRID, Kepler, Pascal, NVIDIA Quadro, and NVIDIA Tesla are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. All company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated. JUN18